Thursday, November 8, 2007

This is a great compilation of all the covers for 52 (wiki) as illustrated by J.G. Jones, coloured by Alex Sinclair.

It's a hardcover book with a dust jacket. On the dust jacket is a glimpse of what's inside the book. There's a little introduction by Mark Chiarello, Editorial Art Director of DC Comics, who talks about getting J.G. Jones on board to do the covers.

In the book are the covers and the multiple concept sketches done for the them. All the covers are captioned to explain the inspiration behind. Most of the accompanying quick sketches are coloured. For every cover produced, you can see all the unused cover concepts that go behind. Oh, the art for the covers are brilliant, but you know that already.

Also included is the process of creating the 52 logo and trade dress.

There is a small section on how Alex Sinclair colours his work. It's not a tutorial but general enough to know what's going on.

If you like the comic, this book is for you.

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Monday, November 5, 2007

The description from the book jacket is rather accurate and I'll quote it here:

In The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook Alan Lee reveals in pictures and in words how he created the beautiful watercolour paintings for the special centenary edition of The Lord of the Rings. These images would prove so powerful and evocative that they would eventually define the look of Peter Jackson's movie trilogy and would earn him a coveted Academy Award.

The book is filled with over 150 of his sketches and early conceptual pieces to show how the project progressed from idea to finished art. It also contains a selection of colour paintings reproduced in full-page glory, together with numerous examples of previously unseen conceptual art produced for the films and many new works drawn specially for this book.

The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook provides a fascinating insight into the imagination of the ma who painted Tolkien's vision, firstly onto the page and then in three dimensions on the cinema screen. It will also be of interest to many of the 100,000 people who have bought the illustrated The Lord of the Rings as well as for budding artists interested in unlocking the secrets of book illustration.

Full coloured paintings are few actually. But this book is an amazing collection of pencil sketches. The chapters are sorted by places that appear in the book, in chronological order.

With the author's comments, it makes this book sort of a "Making of" book together with it being an "Art of" book. So that's really a plus.

It should interest concept and fantasy artists. Oh, and also Lord of the Rings fans.

Visit the link beside to read more reviews on Amazon. If you buy from the link, I get a little commission that helps me get more art books for review.